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groffed all the understanding and virtue of mankind; that their merits filled the world; or that there was no hope of more. They fhew the age involved in darkness, and fhade the picture with fullen emulation.

When the Queen's death drove him into Ireland, he might be allowed to regret for a time the interception of his views, the extinction of his hopes, and his ejection from gay fcenes, important employment, and fplendid friendships; but when time had enabled reafon to prevail over vexation, the complaints, which at firft were natural, became ridiculous because they were useless. But queruloufnefs was now grown habitual, and he cried out when he probably had ceafed to feel. His reiterated wailings perfuaded Bolingbroke that he was really willing to quit his deanery for an English parish; and Bolingbroke procured an exchange, which was rejected; and Swift ftill retained the pleasure of complaining.

The greatest difficulty that occurs, in`analifing his character, is to difcover by what depravity of intellect he took delight in revolving ideas, from which almost every other mind fhrinks with difguft. The ideas of

pleasure,

pleasure, even when criminal, may folicit the imagination; but what has disease, deformity, and filth, upon which the thoughts can be allured to dwell? Delany is willing to think that Swift's mind was not much tainted with this grofs corruption before hist long vifit to Pope. He does not confider how he degrades his hero, by making him at fifty-nine the pupil of turpitude, and liable to the malignant influence of an afcendant mind. But the truth is, that Gulliver had described his Yahoos before the vifit; and he that had formed those images had nothing filthy to learn.

I have here given the character of Swift as he exhibits himself to my perception; but now let another be heard who knew him better. Dr. Delany, after long acquaintance, describes him to Lord Orrery in thefe terms:

"My Lord, when you confider Swift's " fingular, peculiar, and moft variegated "vein of wit, always rightly intended, (al

though not always fo rightly directed,) delightful in many inftances, and falutary ❝even where it is moft offenfive; when you "confider his ftrict truth, his fortitude in refifting oppreffion and arbitrary power;

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"his

his fidelity in friendship, his fincere love "and zeal for religion, his uprightnefs in "making right refolutions, and his fteadiness "in adhering to them; his care of his church, its choir, its economy, and its "income; his attention to all thofe that

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preached in his cathedral, in order to their "amendment in pronunciation and ftyle; 66 as alfo his remarkable attention to the in"tereft of his fucceffors, preferably to his own prefent emoluments; his invincible patriotism, even to a country which he "did not love; his very various, welldevised, well-judged, and extenfive chari"ties, throughout his life, and his whole fortune (to fay nothing of his wife's) conveyed to the fame Chriftian purposes at his death; charities, from which he "could enjoy no honour, advantage, or "fatisfaction of any kind in this world; "when you confider his ironical and hu

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morous, as well as his ferious fchemes, "for the promotion of true religion and "virtue, his fuccefs in foliciting for the First "Fruits and Twentieths, to the unspeakable "benefit of the established Church of Ireland; "and his felicity (to rate it no higher) in

"giving occasion to the building of fifty 66 new churches in London:

"All this confidered, the character of his "life will appear like that of his writings; "they will both bear to be re-confidered and "re-examined with the utmost attention, and always discover new beauties and excel"lencies upon every

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examination.

They will bear to be confidered as the "fun, in which the brightness will hide the "blemishes; and whenever petulant igno

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rance, pride, malignity, or envy, interposes "to cloud or fully his fame, I will take upon 66 me to pronounce, that the eclipse will not "last long.

"To conclude-No man ever deserved "better of his country, than Swift did of ❝his. A fteady, perfevering, inflexible "friend; a wife, a watchful, and a faithful counfellor, under many fevere trials and "bitter perfecutions, to the manifest hazard "both of his liberty and fortune.

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"He lived a bleffing, he died a benefac and his name will ever live an honour to Ireland."

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IN the poetical works of Dr. Swift there is not much upon which the critick can exer cife his powers. They are often humorous, almost always light, and have the qualities which recommend fuch compofitions, easiness and gaiety. They are, for the most part, what their author intended. The diction is correct, the numbers are fmooth, and the rhymes exact. There feldom occurs a hardlaboured expreffion, or a redundant epithet; all his verses exemplify his own definition of a good ftyle, they consist of “ ,66 proper places."

proper words in

To divide this collection into claffes, and fhew how some pieces are grofs, and fome are trifling, would be to tell the reader what he knows already, and to find faults of which the author could not be ignorant, who certainly wrote not often to his judgment, but his humour.

It was faid, in a Preface to one of the Irish editions, that Swift had never been known to take a fingle thought from any writer, ancient or modern. This is not literally true; but VOL. III. Dd perhaps

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